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Archive 1

Races to include (early edition)

It'll be a while before we know what the competitive races will be, but I think we should have some criteria for what races to include. I suggest races where the incumbent has announced his/ her retirement or run for another office, races where we have a credible source that the incumbent may be leaving office, seats that switched party control in 2008, and/ or races where the current incumbent won less than 55% in 2008. As we get more info (such as major challengers and lack there of) we can add and subtract seats, but this gives us a good starting place. What does everyone think? --- CylonCAG (talk) 23:44, 07 December 2008 (CST)

Yes, that's good. However, "credible challenge" of an incumbent Republican who got 52% should be backed up and sourced. BrianY (talk) 20:28, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Anh Cao

People have been adding Anh Cao to the list of Incumbents. We should not add him unless he says he is running for reelection, files with the FEC, or opposing candidates say they will oppose him. Saying he will face a tough reelection is pure speculation, because the Democrats could decide to not give a strong candidate in that district next time. BrianY (talk) 00:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
True, but that applies to pretty much every incumbent. We could just get rid of anyone who we don't know is retiring or isn't publicly thinking about it. --- CylonCAG (talk) 21:08, 26 December 2008 (CST)
Incumbents should still be listed if they've announced reelection, and they are in competitive districts. The Democrats could pass on LA-02 in 2010 if a Republican year, and save incumbents. The ifs are so many that incumbents should only be included if they've announced reelection, may retire to run for higher office, or will retire. If we were going to add incumbents based on our speculation of whether they would face a tough challenge, I could add Charlie Rangel from New York. Rangel is under controversy and investigation for various activites, so if it gets bad enough, he could be challenged in the Democratic primary, or retire due to investigations. A Republican in Utah might retire due to long term service, or wanting to do something else. We shouldn't include that speculation unless we can source it, because a bunch of things could happen to Cao in/by 2010 that could make him an unbeatable incumbent. BrianY (talk) 17:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned references in United States House of Representatives elections, 2010

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of United States House of Representatives elections, 2010's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "wp":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 21:03, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


Incumbents in not very competitive districts

Currently, we have some incumbents who are considered pretty safe listed because either they have announced they are running for reelection, or they have an opponent. I can understand possibly including Brad Miller, since he represents a competitive district (even though he's always done well there). But including Wexler because he has a GOP opponent seems a bit much. His announced opponent only received 27% of the vote last time around, and there is no reason to assume anything will happen to endanger Wexler's reelection in this district.

If we're going to include every district where the incumbent has announced he is running for reelection, and every district where any challenger is running, we should decide on that. Personally, I'd like to establish a little criteria for which incumbents to include, so we don't end up including 200 districts simply because a warm body is running in them. What does everyone think? --- CylonCAG (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2009 (CST)

Put the people like Wexler in a subpage, United States House of Representatives elections in Florida, 2010 or whatever. The Florida subpage hasn't been created yet. In general, for incumbent districts include them if the PVI favors the opposite party, or the district trends Republican like Dennis Moore in Kansas 03. BrianY (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good. I'd allow room for a few exceptions to the PVI rule- for instance, if Democrat Jim Matheson of Utah runs for reelection, he shouldn't be included unless he faces a competitive challenge from the GOP. But in general this should work well. --- CylonCAG (talk) 15:28, 26 January 2009 (CST)
Yes, I don't know but if Matheson won in a blowout in 2008, even if Bush/McCain wins his district, no need to include him. If Matheson had under say 55%, we should include him. BrianY (talk) 22:06, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Matheson won 63% to 35%. Also, if we're not automatically including incumbents up for reelection who won more than 55%, we can delete Miller (66% to 34%) and even Moore (56% to 40%) How about this as a policy: we include any incumbent who has announced s/ he is running again if they won 55% or less in 2008, and any credible opponent who runs in any district regardless of the incumbent's past performance. --- CylonCAG (talk) 21:38, 26 January 2009 (CST)
With the expection that we include Moore. If you look at the very Democratic trend of 2008, Moore did not preform well in Kansas (only 56%). We can delete Miller and list him in one of the subpages, 66% in quite enough of the vote in a D+2 district. If someone wants to take the time to create the subpage that would great, I don't have time right now. BrianY (talk) 01:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, you could make the argument that Moore's 56% is really good for a Democrat in Kansas in a presidential election year. But I see your point. How about if we raise the threshold to 60%? And I'll start work on that sub-page soon. --- CylonCAG (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2009 (CST)
About Matheson, he is seeing a lot of criticism from liberals in Utah for his moderate stance, as well as the way he is ignoring voters in his district when they try to discuss certain issues with him. I don't know about GOP challenges to his seat, but I am mounting a serious campaign against him as an independent for the 2010 election. I have an extensive website detailing my plans for representing the 2nd District in Utah, as well as a blog where I post my opinions for the voters to read.Tamyrlin (talk) 17:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Districts in 2008 Presidential race

Note: This is here for anyone who wants to add in the races when we know of more incumbents retiring/running or for anyone wanting to check the numbers.

Districts in 2008

BrianY (talk) 23:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Organizing the page state by state

I think a way to organize this page that would make it neater would be to do it state by state, as in a table of contents with each state, with each district on this page underneath that state (like what was done on the 2008 page before the election. See [1] for an example).

The other advantage besides neatness would be making it easier to find individual districts that are listed on this page. The disadvantage would be they would no longer be organized by whether they were open seats, incumbent seats, or possibly open seats. However, I think this is worth it right now. By the way, at the moment, we have 43 districts in 28 states listed. I think we need more than three categories for them. CylonCAG (talk) 16:15, 26 February 2009 (CST)

Ok, to your first question, I think (the other way) would work better. I will work on doing part of it. (right now and later) Under say Alabama, we would only list Davis because he's the only one who's announced intentions right? And to your second question, what would three other categories be if we were to keep it this way? BrianY (talk) 04:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I can do it now actually, to show what it looks like. If someone doesn't like it, we can discuss it here. Under Alabama Davis would be the only person listed. If say, Bobby Bright in AL-02 receives a competitive challenge, he would be added above AL-07. As to the categories, I didn't make that as clear as I should have. They would be "Alabama", "California", "Colorado", ect., instead of what we have now. All the Alabama's would be together regardless of whether there is a retirement, a possible retirement, or an incumbent being challenged. CylonCAG (talk) 12:46, 28 February 2009 (CST)
The 2008 page had a list of retiring incumbents. I will add that to this page again. BrianY (talk) 17:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I think it is still worthy to have a section on retiring incumbents (the 2008 page did). But the retirements would only include the district, name, and why they were retiring, not potential replacements. BrianY (talk) 18:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Looks good. CylonCAG (talk) 13:40, 28 February 2009 (CST)

District's leaning one way or another

I think we should all be consistent on this even though it's a fairly minor thing: when we say a district is "leaning" Republican/ Democratic, McCain/ Obama should have won 60% or more there. Maybe "heavily Rep/ Dem" should only be districts that they won 70% or more. What does everyone think? CylonCAG (talk) 20:58, 03 March 2009 (CST)

A district is not leaning Democratic if Obama won 65% of the vote. It's safe Democrat. The only districts where this wouldn't apply would be LA-02, and DE-AL. Besides that, every district where Obama won 60% or more, there is a Democratic representative, correct? BrianY (talk) 01:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
IL-10 is the only other. But, apperently the GOP may have a chance at HI-01. But I don't think we should label any district as "safe". After all, AL-02 and ID-01 were safe GOP on paper, and look how they turned out. Heaviy is good enough. And after thinking about it, I think 65% or more should be considered heavy. Does that work? CylonCAG (talk) 21:17, 04 March 2009 (CST)
Heavy is a better word than safe. 50% to 65% would be leaning then? BrianY (talk) 03:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I think 55% to 65% is lean. One could argue that a 51% GOP district in 2008 is a "lean": after all, it still stuck with the GOP despite their relatively poor year, but a 51% Dem district is "tossup", since it was smaller than Obama's winning popular vote total. 55% for either side isn't super one-sided, but does show a clear lean. CylonCAG (talk) 23:34, 05 March 2009 (CST)
I heard an argument worth discussion presented about NH-02: it doesn't lean Democratic, because prior to Hodes it had a GOP representative for 12 years. I said it leans Dem because Obama received 56% here. Personally, I think we should just stick to Presidential performance in determining "leans" and such. Delaware undoubtably at least leans Dem, and it has had a GOP Congressman since 1992. On the flip side, AL-05 undoubtably leans Republican: McCain won 61% there, even though the district hasn't had a Republican Congressman in over 100 years. While these facts about the district's representatives are interesting, I think they can make it too confusing overall. CylonCAG (talk) 11:18, 07 March 2009 (CST)
It's the President that matters. People are more willing to accept Republicans if they are Democrats and the other way around, for US House, and to a lesser extent the Senate. BrianY (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm new to this whole editing thing with regards to wikipedia, so accept my apologies if this response is not in the proper format. My point is that I don't think that you can say a district leans Democratic or Republican unless you base it on some sort of trends. Just because Obama won this district by 56% of the vote doesn't give enough justification for saying that it leans Democratic- that is too bold of a statement to make with just the evidence you are basing it on. Plus, I don't think that winning a district by 56% would ever be able to classify it as leaning in a certain direction anyways. He would have had to win the district by at LEAST 60% in my opinion, but even that could just be a "bubble," especially when you consider this election. Personally, I don't think you should even have the "direction" that a district leans---Leave the percentages of Obama/McCain's victory in each district if you like, but anything else is too controversial. (Manchguy85 talk) 22:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC).

I understand what you're saying. However, I think 56% is an appropriate number. Usually if a district/ state goes for a candidate by at least double digits it constitutes a lean. For example, in 2004's Presidential Election, California voted "only" 54% for John Kerry, but I think most people classified it as a Democratic leaning state. But with regards to dropping the direction of the district's lean, I can see the wisdom in that. We can just let the number's speak for themselves. What is the consensus on that? CylonCAG (talk) 15:49, 07 March 2009 (CST)
I think dropping the direction of a district's lean is the best idea. Like you said, if you look at just the percentage of a single election, you don't have enough information to make any assumptions of the "lean" of a particular district---you would need to consider other factors and I think it just makes it too complicated and opens up too many options for personal opinions to interfere with the political trend of the district especially when we are considering it with regards to mid-term congressional elections. (Manchguy85 (talk) 23:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)).


My proposed comprimise: we leave out "lean" and "heavy" and such, but include the Cook Partisan Voting Index for each district when they are released. This gives a neutral description of what is and isn't competitive, at least in terms of Presidential results. CylonCAG (talk) 23:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess I could agree to that, however just make sure that you give a good explanation of the Cook Partisan Voting Index at that time. However if this is allowed, then once candidates are narrowed down, we should also add information on what districts are highly competitive, ect. as determined by another source, which would be a good contrast to the voting index. (Manchguy85 (talk) 00:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)).

In 2008, we had a chart with predictions from non-partisan, reputable, frequently updated publications: at the time those were Cook, Rothenberg, Sabato, and CQ. Once we get further in the year, they'll start posting those charts/ posting them more often (Cook and Rothenberg have predictions, but they are rarely updated at this point in the cycle). For an example of what this looked like, see [2]. I imagine well be doing something similar this time, since I felt that worked pretty well.CylonCAG (talk) 02:22, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting...I like how you organized the page for the last election. It looks good. Anyways, since I'm from/in NH, I changed the "leans" democrat for NH02, but I'll leave the rest of the congressional districts to you lol...I appreciate the dialogue and your willingness to alter the site. (Manchguy85 (talk) 06:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)).

I will change it as listed above. Even though the PVI isn't released yet, isn't just how much more Republican the district is than the country? BrianY (talk) 18:37, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Yep, the PVI is how much more Democratic or Republican a district is compared to the national average of the last two elections. I'm not sure we should calculate them yet- I'll have to check this, but it's possible Charlie Cook may have copyright ownership over them. If we calculate them, we'd be passing our own work as "his" partisan voting index. CylonCAG (talk) 19:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good. If we have to wait, when does Cook come out with 2008 numbers? Also where would you find copyright ownership? BrianY (talk) 20:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
I'll have to track down when the CPVI is officially released and copyright info. However, on Cook's website, it says the last CPVIs were "Calculated by POLIDATA on the basis of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Results"[3]. If we were to calculate the new CPVIs, it would be a bit misleading, since Polidata is the group that does them. Also, I'm worried that we'd be conducting original research. For now, I think we should just include the McCain/ Obama %s, and wait for Polidata to comeout with the CPVIs. CylonCAG (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Fine. BrianY (talk) 03:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Predictions

In a little bit, we should include a table of race ratings. This would be a table of the predictions of several well known, non-partisan, reputable, fairly frequently updated publications as to a parties chance of holding/ taking a given seat. For reference as to what this looked like in 2008, see [4].

Last time, the four publications we used were Congressional Quarterly,The Rothenberg Political Report, The Cook Political Report, and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball. Currently, only Cook and Rothenberg have released ratings, but I assume before the end of the year CQ and Sabato will have theirs out.

The purpose of us including these rankings is to let the reader know how competitive a given race is at this time without us inserting words like "safe" or "toss up" into the description of a seat. Later, we can use it to help decide which races to include on this page (when an incumbent was running for reelection s/ he would be included if they were rated as anything but "safe" by at least one of these four publications). We don't need to do that right now since its early and we only have a few rankings, but even now it does give a good idea as to where things stand.

I wanted to include this on Talk before including it. Does anyone have any questions/ comments/ concerns about this proposal? CylonCAG (talk) 22:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

That's fine. I think though that if a race is rated "safe" and a poll comes out showing the incumbent vulnerable, we should include that district (the publications don't release new numbers every day) Also, someone should make the CPVIs as the CPVI abbreviation and not the full word. BrianY (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Regarding polls: I agree with that, as long as it's an independent poll, not an internal one. Regarding CPVI: I'm trying to figure out where to explain what a CPVI is on this page, but I'll do it afterwards. CylonCAG (talk) 20:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
To clarify what I mean by "independent polls": Strategic Vision (which is Republican affiliated), Public Policy Poll (which is Democratic affiliated), and Research 2000 (which often polls for Daily Kos) should be fine to include, because they release every poll they conduct, no matter how good/ bad it is for their side. However, internal polls for individual campaigns or groups such as the NRCC and DCCC should not be included since they'll only release the polls they want the public to see. By including those groups, we wind up with all kinds of POV problems. However, pollsters that release all their polls should be fine, even if they have a partisan affiliation. Does this sound fair? CylonCAG (talk) 16:56, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Sounds fine. BrianY (talk) 19:05, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Frank Wolf

Should we include VA-10, Frank Wolf? He raised $2,000 in Quarter 1 2009 and is 70 years old so could be considered a retirement but hasn't been labeled that in the media. Since we included Bill White (who was labeled as a possible retiree in the media and raised $1,000), do we include Wolf? What would be the source for a possible retirement? BrianY (talk) 01:03, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should. If a website like Politico reports that this may mean he's retiring we should report that, but I think we're writing our own speculation if we alone start raising retirement rumors. Besides, one could make the point that Wolf is safe enough not to raise money. CylonCAG (talk) 15:48, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

PVI and Obama won X% in 2008

Why do we need to have two different sources for those things in each district? The Obama won X% and McCain won X% is included in the CPVI page as well as the real PVI. It seems a bit odd since we are filling up the references section (over 400, I think) and some of them are just Obama won 50% of the vote in 2008 (link to a particular district) McCain won 79% in 2008 (link to another district). This wastes a lot of room, don't you think? BrianY (talk) 02:20, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The "Obama won x%" pages also link to CQ's description of the district's territory, which I think is important to have a link for. So unless we got rid of those links, we wouldn't be changing anything. Though it's worth debating if we need a link that, for example, says that FL-22 includes Boca and Ft. Lauderdale. CylonCAG (talk) 15:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Is there a way we can remove it from the references section? Or create a second reference section just for the districts & pvis? It looks so cluttered...The PVI thing is Ref #432 and Ref #436 (and others) ... do we have to have both even though its the same link? BrianY (talk) 22:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
To my knowledge, there's no way to create a second reference section. And we could reference the %s with CPVI, but the link describing the district's geography would still be there, so nothing would change. I agree it looks cluttered, but I think we need a link of CPVI and geography, and to my knowledge, no site but Wikipedia has both, and we can't use Wikipedia as a source. If there's some way to just link to CPVI once at the top of the page and make it clear for individual CPVIs that's were the link comes from then we should do that. CylonCAG (talk) 00:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, I cleared up about 100 references with the new format I'm doing. Am now looking to see if there's a way to remove the geography references and make them into one. BrianY (talk) 00:06, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Looks great! Nice job! CylonCAG (talk) 03:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Israel

Do we consider Israel as retiring now? I don't really get it - he is preparing to challenge Gillibrand in the D Primary but is forming an exploratory committee and may back out at a later date. BrianY (talk) 23:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Roll Call

What do people think about using the roll call maps? Personally, I don't think they should be used since they don't cite their sources, they could just be listing the state senators that could run in any representative's district. I think it would be better to get news updates...which I am working on for the candidates added yesterday right now. BrianY (talk) 13:49, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Roll Call is fine as a verifiable source. I trust them enough to be listing only people who they actually think may run, not just anyone who is eligible to run in the district. We should try to find an alternate source over them but overall I think they can be safely considered a verifiable source. CylonCAG (talk) 14:54, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
But as I pointed out in my edits earlier today, Roll Call doesn't appear to be tuned in to what is going on. For one they had Leiter as a potential candidate and Thurmond as a potential candidate and they had announced they weren't running. It doesn't seem to be very up to date. BrianY (talk) 22:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Their content definitely seems to differ in terms of how recent it is. They are outdated on what you just described, but up to date on things that happened this week. Probably shouldn't have them as a source than, you're right. Probably anything they say can be found somewhere better. I'll change my vote to not using them as a source, but we should keep their race rankings. CylonCAG (talk) 00:52, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
To clear things up: Using the Roll Call Race Rankings and the news stories that appear on the home page are fine (these are just like politico, and thehill, and politicalwire), just not the map. Sounds good. BrianY (talk) 14:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Speculation

I feel that phrases such as "the incumbent may face a tough challenge in 2010" are overly speculative. Why not just let the 2008 House and presidential election numbers and the list of declared and potential challengers speak for themselves? Qqqqqq (talk) 05:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

In what races do they say this? I remember for CO-04, this phrase was used but had a source to back it up. BrianY (talk) 14:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Over the past few months, most of these phrases have been removed, but some remain. For example, AL-5: "who is being targeted for defeat by state and national Republicans" or CA-50: "Bilbray is expected to be targeted for defeat by national Democrats". CO-4's "Democratic incumbent Betsy Markey is likely to face a spirited Republican challenge in 2010" still doesn't mean much; "spirited" is still vague and subjective. This type of declaration adds nothing to the article; the same could be said for one party or the other for nearly every single race mentioned in this article. I guess I'm just seeking confirmation that this type of phrasing needs to go. I was planning to go through and copy-edit the entire article for phrasing and punctuation and was planning to remove this fluff as well. Qqqqqq (talk) 16:35, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it's fine to state that national Dems/ Reps are targeting a certain seat. If we have a source it isn't speculation that the parties are making winning the seat a priority. I agree that it is speculation to say that so and so may face a tough or spirited challenger or that they may be targeted by a party; however, if they already are being singled out for defeat I think it's fine to note that. CylonCAG (talk) 19:45, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Making this page shorter

This page takes a long time to save/load. I would suggest making it shorter, but I am not sure how to do that. Maybe remove some of the potential candidates which we have gone WAY overboard with? I am removing certain districts that don't need to be included at this point because they are not competitive. Also, we need to check all potential candidates and see if they have announced because we are a bit behind in the races. And the pages for each state, (e.g. alabama house elections, 2010) need to be updated to include the candidates, the geography, race rankings forecast, campaign contributions, district election info from ourcampaigns, and district history. The reason we should do this now is so when we find a non-competitive race we can list it with other district races in the state articles instead of cluttering it on the main page. BrianY (talk) 16:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

We could get rid of any race where the incumbent isn't listed by Cook or Rothenberg as anything but safe (excluding primary challenges and retirements). By my count, this would get rid of 15 districts. I agree we should also check the status for potential candidates to make sure none have taken themselves off the list though we should keep anyone still thinking about running on. This should shorten it a bit. Perhaps when it comes to adding districts we should only use a national source like Politico or CQ to determine a challengers competitiveness: the local media will report most races competitive or not, while national sources only go for interesting ones. CylonCAG (talk) 23:06, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
What is the source saying that OH-08 is going to be so competitive in the primary? It's a rock red district that loves Bohener. There doesn't appear to be any reason why this race might be remotely competitive. What are the 15 districts that come to mind? I am looking for them right now. I would suggest removing some primary challenges, for example, would we list John Smith, a small business owner in Arkansas's 1st district challenging Berry? I removed AL-01 (put it on the state page) and that was a primary challenge. But Jo Bonner will probably win that primary anyway. Just adding on again, something needs to be done, in particular, about NH-01 and NH-02. I get confused when I am adding candidates who are running/vs possible to that list with all the cluttered references & red linked names. BrianY (talk) 01:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Politico did run an entire story on Bohener's challenger demonstrating the guy is worth at least a mention and isn't just a sacrificial lamb. The story does cast doubt on whether he can win, but he is famous enough to get a mention here. And I agree with removing AL-01. But most other candidates in primary challenges did get a mention from what I above described as a national source, demonstrating they are at least important enough to attract a mention there and probably should here. Of the primary challenges most are mentioned by Politico, Roll Call, CQ, ect; the only ones that aren't are PA-11 and SC-04 (which were mentioned in Politico, but the current local sources are a bit more up to date) and MN-06 (which should already be included because of the incumbent's potential reelection challenge from Democrats). As for the districts that I think we could delete, they are: AR-02, CA-47, CO-06, CT-02, CT-05, FL-05, KS-03, MT-AL, NJ-12, NC-11, RI-01, SC-02, TN-06, WA-03, WA-09, and WI-03. Neither Cook nor Rothenberg rate them as competitive right now and can be easily re-added if that changes. Also NY-23 can be sacrificed until after the special election. As for NH, I'll see about updating and fixing it up in the next few days. CylonCAG (talk) 01:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I removed NY-23 last night, and intend to remove some of these other districts. AR-02 is a possible retirement, and a district the Republicans may challenge if they are competing in Arkansas. (Snyder raised $0.00 in Q1 fundraising) I'm looking at other districts one by one and adding them to state pages so the information is kept somewhere else. BrianY (talk) 20:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Ok, let's keep AR-02 until we know more. Of the others I've listed I think we should stay put with CA-47 since it has been getting a fair bit of coverage so far. A good way to shorten the article would be to shorten the geographical description for each district to just what is in the CQ profile. This hopefully would cut it down a little, though I don't know if it'll make a real difference. CylonCAG (talk) 22:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Check KS-03, CA-47, AR-02, FL-05, and MT-AL off the list. BrianY (talk) 00:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Do you mean RI-01 instead of CA-47? Of the remaining ones I vote to chop CO-06, NC-11, and WA-09. The others are a bit more debatable since we have a national source saying they may be competitive but I'm fine getting rid of them right now. CylonCAG (talk) 01:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Last, I checked, of the ones you originally posted, KS-03, CA-47, AR-02, FL-05, and MT-AL, RI-01, are being kept, or have been deleted. The other ones are still up in the air. BrianY (talk) 23:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Third Party candidates

Right now we are including in some races lists of third party candidates. I think we should have some criteria for which third party candidates we should include or leave off. This would help shorten the page or at least keep it from getting longer, and help with readability. I think a third party candidate should be included if they are mentioned by the national press (CQ, Politico, Roll Call, ect) as having a chance to be a factor in the race. What do others think? CylonCAG (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I am unaware of CQ, Politico, Roll Call, The Hill etc... mentioning any third party candidates in House races at the time. I have also pointed this conversation out to Fallen Morgan. BrianY (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
It's pretty rare but it does happen. I believe it did last year in LA-6's regularly scheduled election: Democratic state Rep Michael Jackson ran as an independent and was (correctly) considered a major threat to incumbent Don Cazayoux's reelection hopes. That's the only instance I can think of off the top of my head, but independents do get some exposure when they are considered important enough to change the outcome of the race. CylonCAG (talk) 22:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
It happened in OH-02 last year. So far, this election cycle, no third party candidates have been mentioned by the big four. That's what I was talking about. Obviously, it is still early, but if you check with Federal Election Commission, (which I just did), many third party candidates have registered. BrianY (talk) 23:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
With that in mind, what do you think we should do? Do you think we should include every third party candidate for every race we include on this page, or include only the few that are mentioned by one of the big four? CylonCAG (talk) 23:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
No. I think we should only include the ones that have a potential to make the race competitive. (which could mean taking over 5% of the vote) But I don't know exactly how we should decide which have the possibility to be competitive. I do not think their inclusion by the big four means they won't be competitive though. However, when the four mention them, we should switch to those sources because they have the credibility nationally. Do you get what I am saying? BrianY (talk) 23:49, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
I think so. Should we delete all the 3rd party candidates we have listed now, or keep a few? I haven't gone through the article but no third party candidates have stood out yet.CylonCAG (talk) 00:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
Let's wait and see what FallenMorgan says. (He's the main editor adding the third party candidates) In one particular race, (CA-03) I am not sure how much of a base he has, but Art Tuma could spoil the race for Lungren or the Democratic candidate. That election is at least right now, supposed to be close. BrianY (talk) 00:24, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The election is a little over a year away, and with the locality of congressional races, it's hard to determine if a third party or independent candidate will make a serious impact. I know for a fact that third party/independent candidates routinely take more than one percent of the vote, sometimes enough to "spoil" the election, at the very least. I have a list of alternative candidates for congress, and personally, what I did, is I picked the ones with the well-constructed websites, as a sign of being a potential serious candidate. Eugene Moon, for example, compared to somebody with a blogger page as his "website." It's not exactly fair, but at this point there's no other serious way of being sure. It's a pretty good indicator, because it shows they're willing to put in some effort, but anyways...I think it's a bit unfair to remove candidates under assumptions about their performance, especially if it's only an extra sentence or two. And I know that even if a third party candidate is going to make an impact, they might not get mention by any national press unless it's a very non-partisan source. I recall Eric Sundwall, deposed Libertarian candidate, getting a lot of press coverage. So yeah, maybe press coverage could be criteria, but certainly not at this point, with the election pretty far away. FallenMorgan (talk) 16:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it might save space if we used bulleted lists and short descriptions, instead of the paragraph format which I find to be a bit clunky. FallenMorgan (talk) 16:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that would work without being a bit clunky itself. As for 3rd party candidates: I'm not out to remove people, but the extra sentences do take up room. If we can make a different format work that would be good though. CylonCAG (talk) 00:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Currently there aren't very many third party and independent candidates. Most districts probably have only two candidates running, and not all of the alternative candidates running nationwide have websites, or even media recognition. I don't think a few extra sentences would hurt. --FallenMorgan (talk) 01:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Looking at our problems with space/ loading time I think it could. Besides, there can be and often are quite a few independents/ 3rd party candidates on the ballot. Here's how I think of it: this page is for notable races only. We could write a description for all 435 races, but that would take up far too much room. Instead we have another page for every race, while this is an in-depth look at races that meet certain criteria (rated as competitive, competitive primary challenger, and/ or open seat). I look at the third party candidates the same way. This page is for candidates who we have reason to believe will influence the race. If we include every candidate running we'll have way to much stuff. On the page with every race listed we can and should have every candidate who qualifies for the ballot. But this page needs to be a bit more picky. CylonCAG (talk) 02:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Makes sense. I'm fine as long as it does not mean complete pruning of all third party/independent candidates. Especially at a stage where it's hard to tell if a candidate will have a serious impact or not. --FallenMorgan (talk) 04:19, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good. I think other criteria for including a third party candidate should be if they were a major party nominee for this district in the past (though those people may get national news reports anyway, like Jan Schneider did in 2008) or if they received at least 5% in a previous run. At this point none of the third party candidates we have listed meet those criteria. Do you think this is fair? CylonCAG (talk) 20:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Hmm...the major party requirement seems quite steep. I can go for a percentage requirement, but not all of them are running for a second time. FallenMorgan (talk) 06:06, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I meant they must meet at least one of those three conditions, not all three. All three would be a pretty big hurdle. CylonCAG (talk) 18:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but what were the three conditions? FallenMorgan (talk) 22:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
They should either be mentioned in a national news source, been a major party nominee in a previous race, or have received at least 5% of the vote before. CylonCAG (talk) 04:09, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
What about just any reputable news source? Michael Krsiean is mentioned by WKOW 27, a Wisconsin news network, and Paul C. McKain is mentioned on Ballot Access News. FallenMorgan (talk) 19:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Ballot Access's job is to pretty much cover third party candidates, if I remember right. Nothing wrong with that, but it makes it hard to tell the influential ones from the run of the mills. As for local sources, I'm guessing most report anyone who runs. In February there was a local ABC source in Nebraska about a Democrat running in NE-3. She wasn't a Democrat who any experts thought would be competitive especially in such a deep red district. The local channel was doing it's job in reporting her candidacy, but just because someone reports it doesn't mean it's worthy of being here. Same with third party candidates. A candidate getting a mention means they're running, not that anyone thinks they're competitive. If they make it to the national news they are probably doing something worth taking note of here, but otherwise there's no way to tell. CylonCAG (talk) 03:22, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Alright. I can go with the three criteria mentioned. FallenMorgan (talk) 15:22, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Okay. I don't know of any candidates, in the article or not, who meet any criteria right now. I'll keep an eye out for them though. CylonCAG (talk) 03:48, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey everyone, sorry to put this in the wrong place I'm a little new here but I updated the Cook Ratings to October 22nd I just can't figure out how to edit the reference to the right source page. If someone could do that, that'd be great. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.236.34.252 (talk) 13:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in United States House of Representatives elections, 2010

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of United States House of Representatives elections, 2010's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "cq":

  • From United States House of Representatives elections in New York, 2010: CQ Politics: House Race Ratings.
  • From Georgia's 10th congressional district: Kapochunas, Rachel (2007-07-18). "Too Close to Call for Candidates in Special Georgia Election". CQPolitics.com.
  • From Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico: "111th House Freshmen: Pedro Pierluisi, D-Puerto Rico (AL)". Congressional Quarterly. 2008-11-05. Retrieved 2008-11-05.
  • From Paul Broun: Kapochunas, Rachel (July 24, 2007). "Georgia Conservative Broun Fulfills House Dreams With Special Win". Congressional Quarterly. The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-25.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 13:25, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 14 days and keep at least five threads.--Oneiros (talk) 23:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 01:05, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Missing Republican retirement

According to CQ politics, Linder is the 20th Republican to announce their retirement. We have him as the 19th. Who are we missing? -LtNOWIS (talk) 22:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

We were missing Mario Diaz-Balart, who's running for his brother's seat in FL-21. I've added him now, thanks for pointing that out. – Hysteria18 (Talk • Contributions) 23:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Indiana Dist. 3 Rep. Mark Souder is missing from the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.25.59.113 (talk) 01:24, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Update

Can we please start updating this page with all the results we have so far? When can we start doing that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Politics2012 (talk • contribs) 22:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

CA-20 (Jim Costa) has not been called, but the page has him losing the race. DavidNYC (talk) 23:52, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Map?

When should we start filling in the map? Once filing deadlines pass? Nevermore | Talk 08:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Can we please put in a map of party changes by state? Every other House of Representatives election page has one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.202.137.234 (talk • contribs) 18:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I plan on creating one or a few for a section I've proposed below (see #Analysis section). Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Past Election Results

All of the Wikipedia articles for these races show the percentage of the previous vote each current incumbent got. Could we aggregate this to show this information? The polls these other "non-partisan" pollsters create often do not reflect what actually happens in districts. We have all of the races listed. For instance, it might be helpful to contrast the Indiana Eighth District election result in 2008 with what the pollsters are saying will happen in 2010. Ellsworth got over 64% in that 2008 race, but all of the pollsters listed here call the district a toss-up. Is there really going to be a 14%+ swing in that district? Ellsworth will be on the ballot for Bayh's senate seat. People visiting here might find it helpful to evaluate what the pollsters/pundits say with some actual data.--MoebiusFlip (talk) 18:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Retirements again

With Stupak, we now list 16 retiring Democrats and 19 Republicans. Political Wire says the count is 18 and 20. Who are we missing? -LtNOWIS (talk) 22:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, we're missing Eric Massa (which I guess is sort of a special case), but other than that I'm kind of stumped. CQ has the same figures as us (as far as I can tell), so my first thought was that Political Wire was including special elections. But the ongoing special elections are three formerly Democratic-held (PA-12, HI-01, and FL-19) and one Republican (GA-09), for a total (including Massa's NY-29) of 20 Democratic seats and 20 Republicans. – Hysteria18 (Talk • Contributions) 23:07, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Notable races

Someone needs to add back all the information that was deleted when some morons deleted the notable races page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.28.22.13 (talk) 19:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The result of the deletion discussion was to delete, not to merge the content into this article. If you object to the outcome of the Afd, I guess you could take it to deletion review. Also, avoid personal attacks. – Hysteria18 (Talk • Contributions) 20:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Relevant AFD - Rob Miller (South Carolina politician)

AFD discussion, is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rob Miller (South Carolina politician) (2nd nomination). Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge needed

There is a page full of poll results, mostly from biased pollsters, that should either be deleted or merged here. I suggest a new column, "Other polls", that at least contains the reflinks to the other polls. (It might be possible to color in the cell somehow, perhaps by taking the latest result, or just calling any with divergent polls tossups.) 141.156.160.217 (talk) 17:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Races selected for table

Whatever sources were used to select the "competitive" races populating the table, surely there are changes by now? Some races not listed may now be considered competitive by the very same sources, and some (especially some that keep polling solid Republican) surely are no longer competitive. What do the sources say now? 141.156.160.217 (talk) 05:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Scrolling

The page is too long. I don't support getting rid of it, but we need to figure out a way to reduce scrolling and page length.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 18:22, 25 September 2010 (UTC) I have a new proposal to reduce scrolling.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 23:10, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

      • Not when you have to expand each individual state's box. Previously you could just search for a candidate's name, now you can't. It's also useless if you want to browse. The old way is how the previous three cycles have been done, and I don't recall any complaints about the length then. Heck, the Canadian federal elections are all on one page, and due to the formatting there, the page is about the same length. Johnny longtorso (talk) 01:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
        • I don't understand what's the big deal? If you're looking for a candidate, than you can look under what state their from. I don't see what the big deal is. The old way is a pain in the butt. Why? Because the scrolling was ridiculous. These changes make the page much better.--Jerzeykydd (talk) 02:01, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
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